Polishing (abrading) techniques are widely known in which an abrasive film is used for polishing. Such an abrasive film is fabricated by forming an abrasive layer on a surface of a base film (for example, a resin film, a fabric into which resin fibers are interwoven, a non-woven fabric made of resin fibers, a sheet of paper). The abrasive layer is formed by coating the surface of the base film with a paint and drying the paint to be cured and fixed. As a paint to coat the base film with, a paint is used in which abrasive grains and a binder resin (a bonding material, an adhesive material) are mixed together with the abrasive grains dispersed. The abrasive film is made into various forms such as a tape, a disk and a belt according to purposes of applications and shapes of objects to which the abrasive film is to be applied and is then used accordingly.
The application of the abrasive film is often limited to polishing a wide area of a flat surface of a brittle material (for example, glass and ceramic) for finishing, polishing an end portion of a bare silicone wafer which is uniform in material quality, and abrading a hard disk to form minute grooves (textures) therein. This is because a uniform and flat polished surface is required in polishing a part or a device which determines the performance of a product, for example, in polishing a surface of a semiconductor substrate, mirror polishing an edge portion of the semiconductor substrate, or polishing to finish a surface of a magnetic head or an optical lens while there are situations in which the use of the abrasive film is not suitable for polishing them.